Christian Wilhelm Braune

  Christian Wilhelm Braune (1831-1892) was a German anatomist and professor at the University of Leipzig. He is known for his excellent lithographs regarding cross-sections of the human body, and his pioneer work in biomechanics. Braune was son-in-law to German physician Ernst Heinrich Weber (1795-1878).

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Braune was inspired by the photographic work of French scientist Étienne-Jules Marey (1830-1904) regarding anatomical movement. Marey believed that movement was the most important of all human functions, which he described graphically for biological research in Du Mouvement Dans Les Functiorls Da La Vie (1892) and Le Mouvement (1894). This led the way for Braune's experimental, anatomical studies of the human gait, and published in the book Der Gang des Menschen. This study of the biomechanics of gait covered two transits of free walking and one transit of walking with a load. The methodology of gait analysis used by Braune is essentially the same used today.

Braune and his student, Otto Fischer (1861-1917) did research involving the position of the center of gravity in the human body and its various segments. By first determining the planes of the centers of gravity of the longitudinal, sagittal and frontal axes of a frozen human cadaver in a given position, and then dissecting the cadaver with a saw, they were able to establish the center of gravity of the body and its component parts. Braune and Fischer also did extensive work regarding the fundamentals of resistive forces that the muscles need to overcome during movement.

External sources

• An atlas of topographical anatomy : after plane sections of frozen bodies (1877)
• Anatomical Lithographs by Braune
• History of Kinesiology

Further reading

• Braune, W. An Atlas of Topographical Anatomy after Plane Sections of Frozen Bodies. Trans. by Edward Bellamy. (Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1877)
• Morton's Medical Bibliography (Garrison and Morton). Ed. by Jeremy Norman. Fifth ed. (Aldershot, Hants, England : Scolar Press ; Brookfield, Vt., USA : Gower Pub. Co., 1991). No. 424.